MANCHESTER -- Manchester City have won their last three games with goals in the last five minutes and Vincent Kompany says he knows how frustrating it could be for their title rivals.
Raheem Sterling scored a 96th-minute winner in the 2-1 victory over Southampton as City maintained their eight-point lead at the top of the Premier League. after also scoring a late winner at Huddersfield Town on Sunday and in the Champions League victory over Feyenoord.
Such wins are often seen as the mark of champions, but Kompany says City can't afford to read too much into them.
"I have been in that position myself -- [Manchester] United used to do it to everybody else to be honest!" the City captain told reporters.
"It's a long season. We have done it so far and if at the end of the season we have done it consistently then I will be happy about it. But the key thing for us is not necessarily what the other teams think but just to know that you can trust your team, your players.
"It's too early in the season to talk about titles. It is just good to know that you can have that feeling that at any time of the game you can make something happen.
"I felt it could still happen even that late in added time. I didn't know how much of a part I was going to play in it but I just felt it could still happen."
Sterling's spectacular 20-yard strike, which curled beyond Fraser Forster, was his 13th of the season -- a personal-best tally already for a campaign -- to keep him as City's top scorer.
Kompany praised his teammate's desire and says he has been working hard off the pitch to improve his game.
"I wouldn't bank on it happening every week so the sooner we start scoring earlier the better. I do think that it is a big, big difference [scoring earlier] in a game," the Belgian international said.
"I think it's maybe an inner hunger [from Sterling], maybe that desire to be amongst the best. But you only achieve that through consistency so he has done as well as he could so far this season.
"I can only encourage him to carry on on this path. I've seen the work he has put in behind the scenes and that is the way forward."
City are on a club record 19-game winning streak but victories have been harder to come by in recent weeks with oppositions setting up more defensively.
"From the beginning of the season through to now, the games have changed completely, but we need to find a way to deal with it," Kompany added.
"I wouldn't say it is something to complain about because it just gives you that knowledge that you are going to be on top of the team you are playing.
"You see how the game went against Huddersfield -- it was an own goal from a set-piece that gave them the lead and [against Southampton] set-pieces were a problem -- they had a lot of big bodies in there.
"At some stages it is just a matter of size and power and we shouldn't get it into games where set-plays decide the game. The sooner we find a way to unlock these teams the better it will be for our season."